


Six Parsecs Under

by maniczebra



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, Background Clydeland, Background Techienician, Brendol's Hux's A+ Parenting, Drug Abuse, Eventual Smut, Funeral Home AU, Graphic Description of Corpses, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 09:09:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17097725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maniczebra/pseuds/maniczebra
Summary: Armitage Hux is the reluctant sole proprietor of Hux and Sons Funeral Home, following his father’s death in a car crash. With the latest in a long string of embalmers having quit on him (the last one being his brother Techie’s feckless boyfriend Matt), Hux needs a new embalmer ASAP, as he can’t do everything himself. Enter Kylo Ren. Heavily pierced and tattooed, with a love of Scandinavian death metal, he’s about as far from what Hux was looking for in an embalmer as possible. Ren proves himself to be quite capable, but can he and Hux work together without killing each other?





	Six Parsecs Under

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the Kylux Big Bang 2018. 
> 
> Absolutely incredible art for this fic via the endlessly amazing [spacearts](https://spacearts.tumblr.com/post/181289029884/aaaand-thats-a-wrap-for-my-kylux-big-bang-art). Go check out their phenomenal work (there are teensy spoilers for future chapters, just be forewarned).
> 
> Thanks also to ktula and gefionne, without whom I don't think I could have gotten this far.
> 
> Entombed is a real Swedish death metal band. Their website is [here](https://www.entombedad.com/).
> 
> I am not a professional funeral director, nor do I play one on television. Therefore, any mistakes in any aspect of funeral practice are my own fault. If you do happen to be a funeral director and spot a glaring error, please let me know.

** Chapter One **

It was eerily quiet in the mortuary: the precise, suffocating quiet common to all places that traffic with the dead.

Armitage Hux was seated at the shabby desk in the tiny office of his family’s funeral home, deeply engrossed in paperwork. He straightened in his seat, trying to stretch the lower part of his back, which ached miserably. This was probably due to a combination of general overwork, his shitty posture, and too long spent sitting on the crummy mustard-yellow, polyester-upholstered desk chair that his father insisted was still in fine condition. What did he know? Brendol spent most of his days upstairs in the funeral home proper, wheedling money out of grieving relatives with his reptilian charm. He was rarely, if ever, in the basement office, having spent several thousand dollars they didn’t have creating an opulent professional sanctuary on the main level of the home.

Armitage took a drag on his black Sobranie. Exhaling heavily, he glanced at his watch. It was going on ten-o’clock and Brendol still hadn’t returned from retrieving Mrs. Diaz’s remains from Cedars-Sinai. The hospital shouldn’t be that busy—not at this time of day—but it was entirely possible that Brendol had pissed someone off again and the pick-up would take a good deal longer than usual. Armitage sincerely hoped that this retrieval didn’t end in a fist-fight with an orderly. It had cost a lot of money to sweep that under the rug.

Sighing, Armitage leaned back and raised his hands above his head, fingers interlaced, to stretch his arms and shoulders. As he shifted his weight, the long-suffering chair creaked pathetically. Lowering his arms, he picked up the cut crystal tumbler from its ring of condensation on the desk and took a long drink. The smoky, peaty scotch ran warmly down his throat, without a trace of a burn. His whole person ached to get up and take a nice large refill from the bottle in the filing cabinet, but he was already two doubles into the evening and the intake paperwork for Mrs. Diaz would require a certain amount of sober concentration.

When it finally came on 10 p.m., Armitage was royally pissed. His head ached, his body ached, his liver ached, he was out of cigarettes, and desperately wanted to consume another medically-inadvisable amount of scotch and go to bed. He was well within his rights to leave the intake to his father, as an expression of dissatisfaction at being kept waiting All. Fucking. Evening. He couldn’t properly complain to his father, though, without finding himself on the receiving end of at least one cutting remark.

_Perhaps you’d like to find your own livelihood?_  
_You ungrateful bastard. Don’t forget who it is that keeps you in liquor and tobacco._  
_It’s not like you have anywhere else to be._

No, direct expressions of discontent were not the way to go with Brendol Hux.

Huffing in annoyance to the empty room, Armitage shut down the ancient PC and levered himself to his feet. He crossed to the equally ancient drab gray filing cabinet, unlocked it, and retrieved his bottle of scotch. Locking the cabinet securely again, he flicked the lights off and plodded up the stairs towards his eventual goal: the apartment on the top floor of the building. He shared the space with his father, and, nominally, his brother Will—Techie, but Techie spent so much time at his boyfriend’s apartment that his bed was empty most nights. Armitage didn’t blame him, of course. The funeral home was a depressing, morbid place, and he and his father were not fit company most of the time.

Armitage emerged into the funeral home proper and crossed to the door that concealed the private staircase up to the family apartment. Just as he was about to open the door, the funeral home’s main phone line rang. While it was late, and he didn’t technically have to actually answer the phone at this hour of night, it might have been Brendol having forgot his son’s cell phone number again. Crossing to the main reception desk, he deposited the sweating tumbler and the bottle on it with more force than was strictly necessary and picked up the receiver.

“Hux and Sons Funeral Home. Armitage Hux speaking. How may I help you?”

And then Armitage’s world dropped out from under him.

***

The Los Angeles County morgue was a grim place, even at the best of times. The air was heavy with the stink of industrial disinfectant, applied liberally to cover all manner of unappealing odours. Armitage wove his way through the mint-tiled corridors on auto-pilot, barely registering his surroundings. He had done enough pick-ups from the place to be intimately familiar with its layout, and he soon found himself at the main intake desk. The night tech manning the desk was Doph, one of the few staff members that he actually came even close to liking. Doph was calm, professional to a fault, and didn’t ask Armitage anything about his personal life or try to make irrelevant small talk: all things that were small mercies.

Doph stood up as he approached.

“Jesus, Armitage, you look like shit…have you been crying?” Armitage stared at Doph dully, trying to come up with something coherent to say. It was in that moment that Doph’s brain kicked back into gear, and his eyes widened at the sudden realization. “Oh, fuck. I’m sorry. Finn told me when I came on shift. He said he called you. I’m really sorry. Awful way to go.”

Armitage glared at Doph with as much rage as he could muster in the face of alcohol and bone-weary fatigue. He had had to wait several hours before he could he could make the journey to the morgue, enough time to let the alcohol dissipate from his system. It had been almost four o’clock in the morning by the time he had reached it, and he was lucky that he hadn’t gotten pulled over on the journey.  
Doph flinched noticeably. Armitage attempted to soften his expression, but couldn’t quite determine if the manoeuvre was effective, given the complete lack of change in Doph’s nervous facial expression.

“Thank you, Doph,” he said quietly, suddenly become extremely interested in the pattern of the floor tiles. “May I see him?”

Doph opened and shut his mouth a few times, as if he were trying to come up with the right words in the moment, but none came. Armitage chuckled bitterly.

“You’re going to tell me that I don’t need to, or I don’t want to, or some other load of crap. I’ve seen accident victims before, Doph. I know what I’m in for.”

Doph’s mouth snapped shut like a mollusk. He nodded weakly. “All right. Just give me a moment to retrieve the…ah…right.”

With that, he scurried out of sight into the autopsy room proper.

Armitage checked his watch. Almost five a.m. How was he going to tell his brothers about Brendol’s death? Thomas wouldn’t give a shit; he and Armitage rarely spoke, and he had made it quite clear that he did not care to be associated with the rest of the Hux family. Armitage could wait to contact him. He doubted that he could deal with Thomas’ particular brand of self-righteous pissiness this early in the day. Stensland would at least express regret, he supposed. While Stensland had never had a relationship with their father, he could at least be counted upon to express some quantity of filial regret at Brendol’s passing. Techie would likely be ambivalent. While he had had no contact with their father growing up, they had at least interacted, on some level, as adults in the past few years. He too was likely to be at least somewhat regretful at Brendol’s passing.

Doph popped his head out of the autopsy room door. “We’re ready,” he said somberly.

Armitage took a deep breath and released it loudly. He rubbed at his eyes to try and get rid of the fatigue-induced feeling of grit that lingered there, but the gesture was unsuccessful. His feet had become blocks of lead during the wait, and he had to physically will himself to move. Weak-willed sniveling brat, his father’s voice echoed in his head. _Useless, soft, just like your whore of a mother._

When Armitage entered the autopsy room, the silence was deafening. He typically only visited during the day, when there were at least a dozen techs and pathologists about, and the room hummed with activity. At night, the autopsy suite was deserted, save for Doph and himself, and a portion of the lights were lowered, such that the room took on an almost unhealthy green glow.

His father’s body— _body, Jesus_ —was lying on the steel autopsy table in the centre of the room. The customary white sheet lay in a wide strip across his pelvic region and his head was propped up in a steel cradle. Armitage made his way over slowly, trying to remember how to breathe. His heart thundered in his chest until he felt that it would burst. This was stupid; he was a funeral director for Christ’s sake—he dealt with death all the time. It was not like he and his father had had the sort of relationship that leant itself to weepy outpourings of emotion. And yet, Armitage had dealt with enough bereaved loved ones to know the manifestations of acute grief when he saw them. His chest tightened with a wheeze.

“Are you all right?” Doph asked, placing a hand lightly on his arm. “We can make…other arrangements.”

Armitage sniffed hard, both to draw much-needed air into his lungs, and to push back the tears that pricked at his eyes. Not trusting his voice, instead he patted Doph’s hand in a gesture of reassurance, as he drew away towards his father.

He was unprepared for the injuries.

Brendol’s left leg had been severed above the knee, and there were several inches between the segments of his leg on the table. His chest wall was partially caved in on the left side, and there was an open chest wound just underneath his armpit. Livor mortis had begun to set in along his back and sides, so he’d been dead for at least six hours. Aside from a few gashes, his father’s face and head were surprisingly free of wounds, though closed head wounds could easily be as deadly as open ones.

Armitage’s mouth was filled with cotton when he went to speak. “What…happened?”

Doph swallowed loudly. “He was t-boned by drunk driver. Struck the driver’s side of the car. He was dead at the scene.”

There was a protracted silence as Armitage tried to think of something to say. Luckily, Doph beat him to the punch.

“The autopsy will be tomorrow. We should be able to release him to you the day after that. What funeral home are you using?”

Armitage was shocked to hear himself actually chuckle at the question. Doph, for his part, looked stricken.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “My own, of course.”

Doph’s eyes grew to the size of saucers.

“Are…you…are you sure?” he asked, incredulous. “It was just you and your father for the past few months, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Armitage replied. “What are you getting at?”

Poor Doph flushed scarlet. How he managed to do that in a room so chilly baffled Armitage.

“Well, I mean…” He seemed to have trouble forming words. “You’d have to…”

Armitage sighed loudly.

“Yes, Doph. I’m going to have to embalm him myself.”

Doph’s mouth dropped open.

“But…but…”

Armitage had to get out of here—had to get away from the unremitting nightmare that had become his present reality. He needed whiskey and sleep, preferably in that order. And cigarettes, but the specialty store that sold them wouldn’t be open at this hour. He rapidly felt like he was losing the ability to breathe. He needed air. _Just get outside and get some air, before you faint, you colossal idiot_ , he thought.

“Let me know when you’re finished,” he wheezed at Doph, as he beelined for the exit. He faintly heard Doph calling something to him, but he paid it no heed in his desperation to figure out how to force air into his lungs again.

As he stumbled headlong out of the morgue building, the sun was just beginning to rise. Soon, Los Angeleans would be up and about their daily routines, oblivious to the pain that would speedily be rending his family. Armitage crouched down with his back against the building and took in a huge lung full of air. He tipped his head backward to rest it on the wall, turning his face to the first feeble rays of the sun. 

There was a lot to do. There was a lot to do, and he was so, so tired. He’d been a funeral director for ten years, and this was the first time that he had had to face the business from the other side. The grief of the families that he had dealt with had always been so abstract, so conveniently far away. Now it was sitting squarely on his shoulders, pressing him into the earth with a force that Armitage wasn’t sure that he could crawl out from under. He felt so heavy—he ached—and the day had only just begun. Somehow, they would have to soldier through this, find a way past this moment in time. They would do it, he knew that, but the path to get there was going to be rocky.

***  


The subsequent two days were a blur of activity. There seemed to be a million things that needed to be done in the wake of Brendol’s death, and Armitage was forced to shoulder the Sisyphean burden mostly alone. As he had predicted, Thomas took the news of their father’s demise with a complete lack of emotion. He politely inquired when the funeral was to be, made a vague indication that he might consider attending, and then hung up on Armitage rather unceremoniously. His contact information for Stensland had turned out, surprisingly, to be still valid and his brother had said that he would join Armitage in L.A., if for no other reason than to see his only living relatives. Techie, ironically, had taken the news with the most grace. He and Brendol had not had anything approaching an amicable relationship in several years, and the sum total of his reaction to the news was a soft _well...fuck_.

He had taken the old hearse to the morgue that morning to collect his father’s body. The accident had totalled their brand-new Cadillac XTS, which Brendol had insisted on purchasing, and which he had picked up only three days before his death. Armitage sincerely hoped that the insurance would cover the replacement of the vehicle. The old hearse still ran, but a large part of the funeral industry still relied on image and if Hux and Sons wanted to be seen as professional and trustworthy, then they had to keep up with the Joneses.

Immediately upon returning to the home, Armitage laid his father out on the embalming table and began to construct a plan of attack. A flush with a mild formaldehyde solution first, to clear the lividity. Then arterial injection of a medium-index fluid, tinted with rose Colortone dye, to improve pallor, and give a natural-looking result. All of Brendol’s extensive injuries could, thankfully, be covered with clothing, so minimal reconstruction would be necessary. Armitage sat down on the stainless-steel stool next to the embalming table and picked up one of his father’s hands. It was cool to the touch and waxy, becoming pale and yellowish in death. Once upon a time, Armitage had been deathly afraid of these hands and their capacity to inflict violence. But now, they were just inanimate slabs of tissue, no more or less threatening that any other part of his father’s body.

Armitage was drawn from his reverie by a soft knock on the open door. He jerked his head up sharply, dropping his father’s hand to the table and swiveling on his stool to see who could possibly be interrupting…whatever it was that he was doing. In the doorway stood Matt, blond hair in its usual riotous disarray, is left arm tucked tightly around Techie’s shoulders. Techie’s thin, pale fingers grasped his long, white cane, and his unfocused bright blue eyes were red-rimmed, though it was impossible to tell whether it was from crying or from the general irritation that constantly plagued him.

“Matthew. William,” Hux acknowledged softly.

Matt’s eyes flitted from Armitage’s face to Brendol’s body and back.

“Shit, man. I’m really sorry,” he said, squeezing Techie even tighter. Techie responded by attempting to burrow into Matt’s rib cage.

“Thank you,” Armitage said, as he rose from his stool and crossed to the doorway to stand in front of Matt and Techie. He laid a gently hand on Techie’s forearm. Techie flinched at the unexpected contact.

“William, are you all right?”

Techie turned towards the sound of Armitage’s voice, smiling wanly.

“Yeah, I’m fine, Armie,” he monotoned. “Matt’s been taking really good care of me.”

Before Armitage could respond, there was the distant sound of the front door of the funeral home opening and the being closed rather roughly. Armitage’s stomach sank. He hoped to God that he had not forgotten an intake appointment in his self-indulgent grief.

“Hello,” called a distinctly Irish voice. “Armitage?”

“Damn it all to Hades,” Armitage muttered. “I thought he wasn’t getting here until later.”

Techie cocked his head to the side.

“Is that Stensland?” he asked, his expression visibly brightening. “I haven’t seen him in ages.”

“Ah, yes,” replied Armitage. “Could you possibly go and…intercept him, while I finish up here?”

“Sure,” Techie said, shucking Matt’s embrace, and making his way towards the stairs that led from the basement to the first floor. “Mattie?”

“He’ll be along in a minute, William,” Armitage replied. “I need to speak with Matthew about something important.”

Techie ascended the stairs carefully, and soon the sounds of a joyful reunion between the two brothers could be heard. Matt and Armitage listened for a moment before Matt eventually broke the heavy silence between them.

“You’re not seriously thinking of doing this yourself, are you?” he asked, gesturing to Brendol’s body.

Armitage’s shoulders slumped as he let out a long-held breath.

“I was, at first, but now, quite the opposite, I’m afraid,” he replied. “I was rather hoping that I could convince you to take on the job. I would pay you well, of course.”

Matt elbowed his way past Armitage and began to circle the embalming table like a particularly predatory cat.

“No,” he eventually replied.

“What do you mean, ‘no?’” Armitage countered. “I can’t embalm my own father! Surely, you must see that?”

“Then cremate him,” Matt replied, with a shrug of his shoulders.

Armitage huffed annoyedly.

“It was my father’s wish,” he said, “that he not be cremated. Or his care be entrusted to another funeral home. And he wished to have an open casket service.”

Matt let out a bemused chuckle. “Fucking with you even in death, eh? How very him. Look, I really don’t care what you do. I’m out of this business, my skills are rusty, and your father was a cocksucking sonofabitch that fired me when he found out I was fucking his son.”

“His blind, chronically ill son,” Armitage spat back.

“Look, your asshole of a father didn’t give a shit about Techie until he couldn’t control him anymore! Until he had a life outside of this depressing mausoleum! And you don’t either! Techie is a grown-ass adult— _adult_ —Armitage, who, despite what you believe, does not need someone to supervise his life! Least of all you!”

Armitage took several deep breaths to attempt to get his own emotions under control before he spoke.

“Five thousand dollars,” he said impassively.

“What?” Matt replied, his chest heaving with the lingering exertion of the argument.

“Five thousand dollars,” Armitage repeated. “And William may do as he pleases. I will not interfere in his life, or yours, unless explicitly asked to do so. Please, Matthew… _please_.” 

The silence that followed as Matt weighed the offer was heavy and deafening. He glanced from Armitage to Brendol and back—then again. He ran one of his giant hands through his messy blond curls, and sighed dramatically, as if there was even a chance that he would forgo that much money and freedom for his boyfriend.

“Fine,” Matt says finally. “When?”

“That’s up to you,” Armitage replied, “but I’d like to have the funeral in approximately seven days. There is some family coming from out of town that will require time to arrive here.”

Matt pulled his phone out of his pocket and flicked through the calendar app.

“So, you want to do this next Thursday? How about I come in on Sunday, say two o’clock?”

“Fine,” Armitage replied.

***

The morning of Brendol’s funeral arrived grey and pissing rain. Appropriate, Armitage thought, while assembling what he referred to as his “Class A uniform,” consisting of one of his work suits, white dress shirt, black tie, black socks and plain black shoes. Despite it being his everyday attire, Armitage still felt stiff and uncomfortable in the ensemble, like when he was a schoolboy at his mother’s funeral.

_It had been an uncharacteristically cold late April morning in the English countryside, a light drizzle soaking everyone waiting for the burial of Adaira McGregor. Nine-year-old Armitage stood next to his twin brother Thomas at the graveside, both wearing the same ill-fitting black suit, purchased in haste by some distant relation. The clock in the ancient stone parish church chimed eleven. Young Armitage squared his shoulders as his mother’s coffin was borne out of the chapel by six men he didn’t know, and towards the grave in the churchyard. Armitage and Thomas stood shoulder-to-shoulder as the pallbearers lowered the shining cherry wood coffin into the ground. The breeze tousled Armitage’s hair almost the same as his mother used to, and he felt tears well up in his eyes. He turned his head just enough to look at his twin. Thomas was rigid-backed and stoic. He stared straight ahead and not at the grave, his face an unfeeling mask. Thomas had always been the more reticent of the two, and Armitage wondered if he felt the same gnawing, burning feeling of loss that festered inside his own ribcage._

_The casket was finally lowered into the impossibly deep grave. The dark, glossy wood was dotted with fat drops of moisture, each holding reflections of the dull, gray sky. Armitage was told to throw a handful of soil on top of the coffin. Tradition, he was told. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The recognition that as we are all of born of the earth, so shall we all return to it in the end._

_The dirt had become saturated with the rain, and had melted into a thick, squelching, freezing muck. It left Armitage’s right hand cold and filthy. He wiped it pathetically on the sleeve of his windbreaker. Thomas had a matching one, a gift from their mother on what they didn’t know would be their last Christmas together. The action earned him an admonishment from some relation or other; he no longer remembered who, precisely. Thomas refused the ritual. He always hated being dirty._

_After the interment, they were pulled away by an elderly great aunt, not even left time to absorb what had happened or properly mourn. Days later, they were placed on a plane to America. They were being sent to live with their father, they were told, though neither Armitage nor Thomas had ever met the man. They knew his name—Brendol—and where he lived: Los Angeles. Armitage enjoyed pretending that their father was a famous film star and that he and his brother were going to live in a beautiful mansion with servants and a pool. That’s what everyone in L.A. had, right? It would certainly be a change from the small stone cottage where he and Thomas had grown up, and Armitage was looking forward to it._

_When the flight attendant led them off the place twelve hours later, Armitage got the shock of his young life. Instead of a handsome actor, they were introduced to a severe-looking man, in an equally severe-looking black suit, with sandy red hair and dull blue eyes. His greeting was utterly lacking in warmth, as though Armitage and Thomas were a burden to be tolerated rather than beloved sons._

__

It was a strong clap on the back that eventually brought Armitage back to the present. Stensland stood behind him, dressed in a gray suit, with a blue shirt and tie. His hair had been slicked back into something approaching a socially-acceptable hairstyle, and he was even wearing cologne. 

“It’s about time,” he said. Armitage nodded.

The funeral itself was uneventful. Armitage had elected not to eulogize his father and had instead invited his father’s friends and colleagues to share memories of the man with the assembled group. There had been blessedly few people who had had stories to share about the late Brendol Hux. Brendol’s last ex-wife, Maratelle, had briefly caused a scandal when she gave an impassioned diatribe about what a loathsome son of a bitch her late ex-husband had been. Armitage had allowed the display to go on for longer that was strictly necessary, in part because Maratelle shared his own generally poor opinion of his father and was far more comfortable voicing her opinions on the matter in public, and partly because Armitage felt that the display added a refreshing burst of oxygen to the stuffily solemn proceedings.

The reception, on the other hand, had been a shit-show. Between being forced to associate with his father’s previous friends and colleagues, and Maratelle becoming utterly intoxicated, Armitage had been glad to finally escape to the basement for a long-overdue cigarette and an excessively-large glass of his own personal embalming fluid—gin—which had begun storing in the embalming fluid cabinet in an attempt at a joke, even though it probably violated at least a dozen state statutes.

“What will you do now?” Matt asked, startling Armitage out of his seat and causing him to spill a measure of liquor over his necktie.

“I don’t know,” he eventually replied. He couldn’t run both sides of the business himself, not without help anyways. And he had never been the greatest embalmer, besides. Sure, he was fine on most typical work, but he lacked the “touch” that separated the true restorative artists from the rest of the funeral industry. “I don’t suppose I could entice you into—”

“Fuck off,” Matt shot back, though any venom inherent in the retort was removed by Matt’s wry smile and small chuckle.

“I had to try, didn’t I?” Armitage asked. “Drink?”

***  


Two days later, Armitage had submitted an ad seeking a new embalmer to all of the industry publications and other sources that he could think of. There was nothing left to do but wait.

And wait.

And wait.

After six weeks, Armitage was going out of his mind. He had had precisely no serious interest in the position, and what casual interest there had been was either not licensed in California, or had no desire to work in a small, family-run establishment.

Armitage began to have visions of selling the whole thing and moving back to England. Perhaps, he could open a small mortuary in the village where Thomas lived and have something approaching a relationship with his twin. The only problems with that idea shared both his hair colour and half his DNA. He was sure that Techie would be fine without him. Despite what their father had believed, Matt was a good man, and he would willingly kill himself before he knowingly hurt Armitage’s younger brother. Techie would be done with his master’s degree in a little over a year and was virtually guaranteed to find immediate employment. In spite of their father’s firm belief to contrary, Techie was independent and self-sufficient and would be fine without the rest of his family.

Which left the problem known as Stensland. Armitage had found out soon after the funeral that Stensland had been evicted from his apartment in Seattle, and functionally had nowhere else to go. He had also been rather scandalously involved with a married woman, whose husband had threatened to kill him, but Stensland had assured him that the matter had been dealt with satisfactorily. Still, it meant that Stensland had summarily moved in with Armitage. Armitage had tried giving him a job at the home, but it turned out that Stensland was utterly terrible at everything except selling caskets. The only drawback to this was that most of his customers either couldn’t understand his brother’s thick Irish brogue or found him far too enthusiastic a salesman for such a solemn business. Eventually, Stensland had taken to dividing his time between sitting on the couch in his pyjamas watching Dawson’s Creek, and touring gaudy tourist trap that Los Angeles had to offer, which was to say, a lot of them.

Armitage had just about begun to despair when he got an email from a prospective candidate. Kylo Ren’s resume read like a veritable Who’s Who of Southern California funeral companies, and he had also done a stint in the Army. Americans were apt to see honourable military service as a positive bellwether of trustworthiness, and Armitage hoped that it would be true in this case. He waited a day or so before calling Kylo Ren to arrange an interview—he didn’t want to appear desperate. Ren answered on the third ring.

“Yes, hello?” he said.

The voice was a luxurious baritone: not at all what Armitage had been expecting, although, he didn’t know precisely what he _had_ been expecting. Armitage quickly arranged an interview with Ren for three days hence and promptly tried to forget all about the way Kylo’s Ren’s voice had made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

***

  
As the time for Kylo Ren’s interview approached, Armitage found himself in his casket room, nervously adjusting and re-adjusting the exact positioning of an understated pewter cremation urn on its floating glass shelf. Of course, its positioning had already been perfect, but he needed something to tamp down the nervousness in his gut, and he couldn’t very well show up to a professional meeting reeking of alcohol or stinking of cigarettes. Armitage couldn’t recall another time when anything to do with the business had affected him in nearly the way that this was, so why the hell was he so nervous now? _He’s your only hope, Armitage; the only one that even responded to the advertisement. If he’s not competent, or doesn’t like you, then you’re screwed_.

The door opened at precisely five minutes to two. The man that walked in was nothing like Armitage had pictured from hearing his voice on the phone. For one, he was much, much younger than Armitage expected, or at least he looked that way. His skin was smooth and gloriously unlined, but was flecked here and there with small, dark moles. Time spent in basement mortuaries divorced from sunlight had obviously been good to him. His face was long, almost to the point of being comically disproportionate, and it was topped with a great aquiline nose. Ren also sported a pair of generously-sized, absolutely gorgeous lips. Armitage’s mind flashed an image at him of just what those lips would look like wrapped around his cock.

“Mr. Hux?” 

Armitage came crashing back to himself with the speed of a spacecraft re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. He drew in a deep, laboured breath while he tried frantically to collect his thoughts. He eventually managed to extend his hand to Ren in greeting, while he plastered his best customer service smile on his face.

“Mr. Ren. Armitage Hux. Please call me Hux. How do you do?”

Ren grasped his hand with one of his enormous paws and shook it vigorously. 

“Kylo. Nice to finally meet you,” he said. His hands were warm, slightly calloused, with thick, delectable fingers. _Armitage_ , his brain chastised, _this is not a date_.

“Likewise,” Armitage managed to reply. “Would you care to step into my office?”

He gestured to what had been Brendol’s private sanctum. He really couldn’t imagine interviewing anyone in the place that he _actually_ used as an office. Armitage stepped aside to allow Ren to enter ahead of him. It was then that he got a look at Ren’s hair: lustrous, long and black, tied in a low ponytail. He also, to his utter horror, caught himself staring at Ren’s simply stunning ass, which was not being very well hidden by his khaki trousers. _Armitage, you’re practically drooling_ , his conscience supplied.

Once both he and Ren were inside, Armitage shut the door to the outer hall. He gestured for Ren to have a seat in one of the chairs on the near side of the enormous walnut desk, as he circled around and took his place in the leather chair on the opposite side. 

“My father’s idea of subtlety,” he said, gesturing at the desk separating them. Armitage saw his joke fall flat as Ren merely hummed in reply. 

“Your resume in very impressive,” he said, attempting to recover. “First Order, Organa-Solo, Republic. You’ve worked for practically every major funeral home chain in the state. So, I suppose my first question is: why us?”

Ren had the decency to look thoughtful for a moment, though he must have anticipated the question.

“I know that you’re expecting me to say that all those other places were just assembly lines and it was impersonal and corporate and all that garbage,” he began, “and that I’m looking for a more traditional, customer-centric experience. Someplace smaller, that still has a heart, or whatever.”

Armitage was not quite sure of the look that must have crossed his face in that moment, but whatever it was, it caused Ren to pause, sigh, and then continue: 

“Look, you posted the ad for this job six weeks ago, and you still agreed to see me today, which means you haven’t found anyone, or at least anyone you liked, in those six weeks. So, you need an embalmer, probably very, very badly at this point. I just happen to be a good embalmer—hell—a _great_ embalmer and I happen to need a job. It looks to me like we each have the solution to the other’s problem.”

Armitage felt himself purse his lips involuntarily. Ren had given just given him one of the most indecorous responses to a job interview question he had ever heard. The fact that he was right was beside the point. It was inappropriate to speak to a potential employer in such a familiar and unrestrained fashion. Brendol would never have even given the time of day to someone who did not show at least a healthy level of deference to his authority. His father’s attitude to his employees had ensured that no-one stayed around for very long, unless they were exceptionally desperate for a paycheque or greatly enjoyed masochism. Fortunately, it was a tradition to which Armitage had never subscribed.

“It would appear so, Kylo,” he said, standing up from his chair. Ren looked momentarily confused, as if he was thinking that he had just botched his interview and couldn’t figure out why. Then Armitage extended his hand to him. “Can you start on Monday?”

***  


Monday arrived with blazing sunshine and a burst of muggy heat. This was the type of weather that saw people with no access to air conditioning dying in droves, especially those with chronic illnesses and those of advanced age. Luckily, the funeral home was, by necessity, thoroughly cooled throughout.

Armitage was in the mortuary reviewing the home’s stocks of arterial fluids—low on Flotone and X-20—when he heard the back door open and then shut loudly. There were a few tentative, heavy steps down the corridor when a voice called out “Hux?”

“Down here Kylo,” he replied, making his final notes about what needed to be ordered and shutting the stainless-steel cabinet with a solid, metallic clunk. A few more heavy steps echoed down the hall, and then Kylo Ren entered the mortuary.

The man who stood before Armitage was a mere shadow of the person that he had interviewed. Gone was the neat attire and sleek ponytail; they were replaced by a sloppy bun revealing huge ears, painted-on black jeans—ripped at both knees—heavily scuffed combat boots, and a black t-shirt sporting the logo for, what Hux assumed was a band, rather ironically called “Entombed.” The t-shirt, Armitage noted, was doing a spectacular job at maintaining its structural integrity in the face of its wearer’s frankly enormous pecs. Armitage felt something stir in his lower abdomen, which he immediately attempted to suppress by conjuring mental images of his most gruesome cases.

If his new embalmer’s attire wasn’t enough, he sported two full sleeves of tattoos that disappeared into the sleeves of his t-shirt to, presumably, continue further down his torso. But it was the piercings that had Armitage seeing red. Kylo had a staggering array of body parts that had had holes punched through them and pieces of metal inserted. Armitage counted at least three piercings in each of Kylo’s huge ears (though none, curiously, through the lobes themselves), a ring in his right eyebrow, a nose ring in his left nostril, a lip ring, and Armitage had been positive he’d seen a flash of a tongue stud.

“My nipples are pierced too, if you’re wondering,” Kylo deadpanned. Armitage’s face burned hotly with the shame of being caught staring.

“Is that so?” he replied dryly, attempting to affect his most nonchalant tone, and failing miserably. “You didn’t have any of… _this_ …at your interview.”

Kylo had the gall to respond by laughing loudly.

“My old man always said, ‘nothing that shows when you’re wearing a dress shirt,’” Kylo replied, holding up both of his wrists so that Armitage could observe the way in which his sleeves ended just above them. “Everything else either comes out…or doesn’t show,” he added, with an exaggerated wink.

Armitage was at an absolute loss for words.

“Yes, well, that may be, but this is still a professional environment,” he said.

Kylo had the audacity to laugh again.

“Look, boss,” he said, “By your own admission, I’m not going to have anything to do with clients—you said so yourself. The rest of the time I’ll be wearing PPE, so I really don’t see what the issue is.”

“Surely all of…this”—Armitage gestured vaguely to Kylo’s piercings— “cannot be sanitary in this environment.”

Kylo had the audacity to laugh again.

“I’ve had these for almost ten years, Hux. They’ve never been a problem before.”

Kylo dropped his backpack on the side counter, unzipped it, and pulled out a roll of transparent film. He held it out for Armitage to inspect.

“Anything that doesn’t come out gets covered with Tegaderm. It’s perfectly sanitary. You said yourself that I wouldn’t be interacting with clients, and if for some reason I need to, I can take all of them out, it just…takes awhile. So, what do you say Hux? Can I keep my job?”

Kylo then proceeded to affect the most ludicrous display of puppy-dog eyes that Armitage had ever seen, followed a moment later by a tiny, puppyish whine. Armitage rolled his eyes.

“I already know that I’m going to regret this,” he said.

Kylo beamed.


End file.
